


New Horizons

by zabjade



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 09:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17077685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zabjade/pseuds/zabjade
Summary: Lapis used to hate Earth. Now she doesn't. There are other things that Lapis has hated. This story is in answer to a request for the Hidden Gems Holiday Event http://spuffygems.boards.net/thread/60/holiday-event"Lapis' first fusion since Malachite. Can be with any of the Crystal Gems, though I'd rather it not be Peridot. The gem they create can be anything you wish."





	New Horizons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ree_Dragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ree_Dragon/gifts).



It really was a beautiful planet, if you looked at it from the right angle. The top of the temple was a pretty good one, letting Lapis see for what seemed like miles, the sea breeze gently ruffling her hair. Everything was so vibrant and alive. She hadn’t always felt that way about it. She’d hated it for a while, thinking of it as a filthy, horrible mud ball that was somehow out to get her.

It was Steven who had opened her eyes to what the Earth was really like. Steven and…. She glanced down at the gem lying stretched out a few feet away from her. Amethyst was gazing up at the clouds, like she hadn’t a care. Deceptively simple. Just like the world that had birthed her.

She was laid back and liked fart jokes just as much as Lapis herself, but beneath the wild-child exterior was a depth of maturity and strength. _Though if I told her that, she’d end up kicking and screaming in protest,_ Lapis thought with a grin. The purple gem had a reputation to uphold, after all.

Amethyst shifted suddenly, sitting up and stretching her arms back so the weight of her upper body rested on her palms. “Hey, Lapdawg,” she drawled with a smirk. “See something you like?”

“Oh yeah,” she said with her own smirk as she turned back towards the view. “Something I really like. The Big Donut. They have maple glazed donut holes now. Mmmm.”

Amethyst cackled, then got to her feet to join Lapis in looking over Beach City. “Oh man, those _are_ good. I could stuff, like, five dozen of ‘em into my mouth at all once without even shifting shape.”

The image easily popped into Lapis’s head. Amethyst shoving donut holes into her mouth, the maple syrup oozing out and her cheeks puffed out like one of those animals Steven had shown her. What had he called them? Chimpmonks, maybe? No, _chip_ munks. That was it.

“Hey, we should totally go and g-ack!” Amethyst’s words were cut off as she slipped over the side of the temple, arms pinwheeling uselessly as she hurtled down towards the ground.

She’d probably be fine, assuming she even hit. She could shapeshift, after all. Still, though…. Lapis sighed and dove after the purple gem, her wings sprouting out and angling to speed her decent. Once she had a hold of Amethyst’s wrist, she glided them down towards the beach in a lazy spiral. Then they landed and everything seemed to turn upside down.

There was a sucking, swirling sensation, like she was being dragged into a whirlpool, everything she was being pulled apart and mingled with…. _No!_ Not again. She would _not_ lose herself again. She wouldn’t let herself… She wouldn’t….

She wrenched away from Amethyst with a scream, stopping the fusion before it could complete and leaving them both on their butts in the sand. She just sat there for a moment, arms wrapped herself as she shook. Memories of Jasper swirled through her head. Memories of Jasper and of Malachite. They’d become a monster. A monster trapped at the bottom of the sea. Trapped by her own will and trapped by each other. Trapped, just like with the mirr—

“Lapis? Hey, Lapis, you okay?” Amethyst’s voice was uncertain. “We, uh, we could still go and get those donut holes. Or, or, I know! A Fish Stew pizza with all the toppings. You know you always laugh at what that stuff does to me.” She let out a shaky little laugh of her own. “Or… I could go. If you need to be alone.”

Lapis looked up at her. The other gem was anxious and worried, but trying to hide it. They may have both been quartzes, but Amethyst was nothing like Jasper. Who would they become, if….

“Fuse with me,” she blurted out.

“What?” Amethyst said, voice cracking as she backed away. “Are you crazy? You aren’t ready for something like that!”

Lapis got to her feet and held out her hand. She wasn’t ready. But she’d probably never really _be_ ready until after she just did it. With Jasper, they’d each been the other’s prison. She’d been trapped in a monstrous form with someone that she hated. But with Amethyst….

“Please. Just… fuse with me.”

Amethyst hesitantly took her hand. “Whatever you want, Lapdawg. It’s your choice.”

They danced, short and wild, and then…. The whirlpool came again along with the terror of losing herself. She accept it, let herself go. Let is suck her down and spew her back out as something different and new.

She… her… they? She wasn’t Lapis anymore, but she wasn’t Amethyst, either. Who was she? She blinked all four of her eyes, then looked down at her indigo hands. Just the two. She was big, the mass of both Lapis and Amethyst, but she had two arms, two legs, and a normal torso. She looked down at the violet blue gemstone on her chest, then sprouted her wings from the one on her back.

Tanzanite. She was Tanzanite. She bounced on her feet, grinning. Then she launched herself in the air, giving off a shout of joy as she soared and swooped. This was amazing. She felt good. She felt light and… and _free_. She felt… kind of weird, actually. Her stomach was rumbling and all gurgly, almost like….

Sssssssssssssssssssssffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttsssssssssssssssss!

“Heh… hee hee… snerk…bahahahaha! _Snort!_ ”

Tanzanite split apart, dropping Lapis and Amethyst down on the beach, laughing together.

As the laughter naturally died down, Lapis laid back on the sand, holding her arm up to stare at her hand. Blue again. She was herself, after just a few minutes as Tanzanite. It had been nothing at all like Malachite. That had been a battle. A constant fight for control in a misshapen body held together by willpower and spite.

But Tanzanite…. Lapis sat up and glanced over at Amethyst. She wasn’t ready to try again. Not yet. But maybe….

“We should do that again sometime. Later. _Very_ later.”

“Yeah,” Amethyst said with a smile. Then she stood up and stretched. “Hey, wanna go and finally get those donut holes?”

“I’d like that,” Lapis said with a smile of her own.

Then she sprouted her wings, grabbed her friend by the wrists, and flew them both towards the Big Donut.


End file.
